On two GB and network stations. This is Afternoons with Bill Woods.
Filling in from Michael McLaren.
Ah, yes, thank you very much for being with us. Really appreciate that. I hope you will wherever you're listening to us around the place. Michael will be back tomorrow. Don't worry if you haven't caught up with that. He's quite well and he will be back on deck tomorrow. We've got a classic Michael McLaren's show for you this afternoon. I hope you'll be able to stick around for all
of it. We'll talk shortly to your land to say, is is that you Southwales CEO of Saint Vinnie's and they have the big CEO sleep out tonight which always generates a lot of publicity for Vinnie's. We thought we'd
catch up with Orlander and John Stanley. By the way, we'll be broadcasting from that tonight, but we'll find out just what Saint Vinnie's is up to and how perhaps their services have had to change over the years, and whether they're dealing with more people who are in strife since we've had quite severe issues with cost of life. By the way, the unemployment figures have come out today. I'll get to that in just a moment. But yeah,
a lot of people think we're going okay. The indicators aren't too bad, but there are still many of us out there doing it tough. So we'll talk to Orlanda about that in the second half hour. In the midday hour, we'll be talking to Jackie Fitzgerald, who's the executive director of New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Now I'm having an exploratory conversation with Jackie because it's pretty alarming when you hear about this horrific alleged gang rape in Sydney in the last few days, a case that's been drawn out over a number of months. But there have been these regional gang attacks all by teenagers in regional censures, not just in New South Wales but
in other states of Australia as well. But is it actually getting worse or are we just seeing stories on the very worst of a still small number of youth offenders. We'll find out from Jackie Fitzgerald a little later on. Because it does make you worry when you see these severe crimes reported, but it can be a misrepresentation of what's actually happening out there, so we'll find out and
a Corday will join us. She's a regular guest on The Michael McLaren Show with screen Talk just after one o'clock this afternoon, and I have to confess I'm just I'm more than a little bit excited and very lucky. I think Michael's probably a bit envious too, to be honest. We've got Marsha Hines coming in the studio. I've always been a big fan of Marsha's and she probably won't remember because I think I had hair back then. But we have met a couple of times when we're working
through television on various programs and whatnot. But she's an amazing person, a great talent, and is still going strong with a remix of arguably her biggest hit, and there have been plenty of those, so we can debate that as long as you like, but we'll play a bit of it later on. You know the song very well, believe me. But Marshall come in a chat about that and whatch he's up too lately. I do apologize to Jim Haynes. I'm not quite as excited about him as
I am about Marsha. But I think he's quite understanding. Jim's coming in for his regular history segment after two o'clock Sydney Siders, of course, and we'll have a chat with Jim. That'll be a lot of fun and Ed John will join us. Now. Ed is the Manager of Stewardship at the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors. Now there's a title. There's quite a title. I'd have to have to write that out every time I filled out a form. But anyway, the story is how much Australian CEOs are
being paid. And I confess, unless you're one of them, it can be a bit of a sore spot every time you're sitting in traffic and get cut off by that maserati. That doesn't give an indicator you're thinking, oh, there's another CEO heading to collect his golden handshake. But there are some stats out today and interestingly reported in different ways in different media, I must say, but it's not as it's not as bleak as you might think. In other words, they're not all out there ripping us
off with massive pays pay packets. But anyway, we'll go through the details of that with Air John and there are a few exceptions, I must say, which I think News Court focused on today, But there are many other CEOs who are actually on the whole getting a little less than you think they might be. So we'll cover
all that today and also the Winter Wheel. Now, yesterday I managed to on fairly late notice fill in for Michael and I managed to be the first person on this network to get someone a two and a half grand prize on the Winter Wheel. So I'm pretty happy about that. I can just drop the mic and walk away after that performance. We will try and do it again today. We're giving it away on Breakfast mornings afternoons and Sydney Now with Clinton Maynard, who'll be following us today.
Of course, listen for the queue a little later in the program and you could spin and win. We'll play you the queue now. This isn't the official CU, but we'll give you an idea what it sounds like in just a ticket. It'll be the two GB Winter will Q.
Two gbs Winter a Wheel.
Yes, that is not the queue. That's the preview of the queue, and that'll be what your queue to call is. And I'll give you the number now in case you want to write it down for later. It's not the usual number, it's one three hundred. It's a one three hundred number seven double two eight seven three one three hundred seven double two eighty seven three. That will be a queue to call, and I'll give you a clue. It'll be much later in the program, in the third hour.
So that's a snapshot of what's coming up. And we'll be very soon talking to Vinnie's. But I did mention we had the unemployment figures out, so before we go to the break, I'll just read you the news release that came out today. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate has
remained at four point one percent for May. This is the Buria Statistics data, and the ABS head of Labor Statistics has said, and I quote, despite employment falling by two thousand people this month, it's up two point three percent compared to this time last year, which is stronger than the pre pandemic ten year average, which is an annual growth of one point seven percent. That's Sean Creek from the ABS. They're the latest unemployment figures for what
they are worth. It's sixteen past midday. We'll be right back and talk to Vinnis. It's nineteen past midday. Now a lot of us have heard of the Saint Vincent de Paul's Society, and certainly on this station because after all, its household name in Australia. And tonight they, as they do every year, they'll have the Vinnie's CEO Sleepout. Now very own John Stanley will be broadcasting live from the sleepout from eight pm. And this one's pretty special too
because it's the twentieth year of this sleepout. The idea is for business leaders to spend a night sleeping rough, to experience the conditions that vulnerable people endure all the time, and to raise awareness and funds in support of those
who need it most. In the last financial year that's twenty twenty three twenty four, Vinnis in New South Wales alone supported almost one hundred thousand people, providing them with food, clothing and household bills, support, advocacy and emotional support as well. They also managed to assist one hundred and two thousand people with their Vinnis vans distributing food, snacks and toiletries.
Now Orlander says is the New South Wild CEO of Vinnis and she's on the line now you landa thanks for your time.
Thanks for having me on.
Now. Firstly, Vinni's has been around for more than one hundred and forty years. How have you noticed that the evolution of the support that you give and who you have to give it to.
Yeah. Thanks, Look, we've been around one hundred and forty years providing care and assistance to people who are experiencing poverty or disadvantage. And I think, look, you know, certainly over recent times we're seeing there's not really a definitive type of person coming for her help. So there's been an increase certainly people with your incomes coming to us over recent years. There's families, there's single parents, older people,
younger people. It's a real but I think one of the things we've seen in particularly the last three years with the cost of living pressures is certainly people with dual incomes coming in because they're not able to make ends meet. So that's been a bit of a shift in recent times.
Yes, I have heard that sort of just on the ground side to speak anecdotally, that a lot of any support workers have been a little bit surprised at the types of people that are coming in and asking for help, and that has been a more recent phenomenon.
Yeah, that's right, and we're also you know, know that two out of five of the come to see us are coming to us so the very first time. So that tells us, and given our full print across the country and across the state, that it's possible that it's the first time that they're turning to a charity for help. So that should be concerning for all of us because
it does mean that. Look, the cost of living crisis and pressures on people's budgets affects everyone in one way or another, but it's always those people who are already vulnerable or right that on that edge, I guess for vulnerability who are most impacted by having to absorb extra costs they just don't have the capacity to absorb. So we're certainly seeing a lot of that and housing costs and food costs of being from of the big drivers for that need.
How did the vans work Lander and how has that changed over the years.
Yeah, Look, the vans are out every night of the yeks of the Christmas in New South Wales and we have about fourteen vans across New Southwest, so both regional and metro and we go out, we provide basics around food,
sleeping bags, blanket blankets. But what's really important and the evolution of our vans over the last couple of years has been we're doing a lot of outreach and referral from the van, so it's a bit of a one stop shop really, so not only will help you some of those immediate needs, but also understand what else it is in my need and whether we refer you to one of our frontline homers services or they might be in are one of our domestic or family violence services,
or perhaps to another provider that specializes in something you might need help with. So that's evolved over the last couple of years where we're doing much more outreach from those lands and being able to then refer people on to additional assistance that they might need.
And do you find a lot of people, even though they have more acute needs that they also appreciate a bit of social contact as well, someone who just cares.
Talking to them absolutely, So that's always been a great strength of actually the way that Beginnings and our members.
We're a member based organization. We have about five thousand members, all volunteers giving of their time every day in communities across New South Wales and we're in about four hundred communities across New South Wales and they provide care assistance to people doing it talk in their own lovely community, where they live and where they work, so they're very much a part of those communities and they do that
with you know, compassion listening. Sometimes it is just the listening here, and we do the same thing on our vans, and we do the same thing in our frontline services. The way that we help and care for people is very relational and a big part of the way that we work as an organization. So certainly on the van in particular, sometimes that companionship is you know, as important and being seen and being listened to as important as the help they're getting.
And of course you help a whole range of people, but when it comes to the homeless in particular, it's this time of year that the bites, isn't it.
Well, that's right, I mean you just have to be out in the weather over the last couple of weeks and it's been very cold at night, and so look, homelessness, that roughly thing is only part of homelessness, and there's another large unseen part of guess of homelessness, which is that insecure housing, leaving in overcrowded housing, or maybe sleeping in your car on someone's couch, you know, And there's
all those types of homelessness. So any insecurity of housing where you don't know where you're going to be sleeping the next vail the next week is really homelessness per certainly for the rough sleepers. Look, you know, sleeping out in these tops of conditions, we know it has very detrimental health impacts of course on people as well as mental health impacts. But we're seeing people with more and
more complex needs. So there's not only the housing needs that they bring to us, but often they come co presenting some mental health, perhaps alcohol, drug dependency is so they are presenting far more complex and so we have to work with them across all the types of care that we provide, and our frontline services have seen that a real increase in demand that being our home to shelters, our domestic and family violence shelters unfortunately also seeing an
increase in demand so across the board, from the people we're helping day to day with cost of living to those that we're providing more acute care to now services. We're seeing an increase in demand across the board.
I was going to ask you about that, the incidence of mental health cases and indeed drug and alcohol abuse. Do you have any statistics on hand to tell us whether that's greater or smaller and what we're seeing on the streets.
Now, Yeah, certainly preventings ourselves. We're definitely seeing an increase
in people turning to our frontline services to help. There's always diffici finding places for people in drug and alcohol rehabilitation services, so that's there's a gap there in regards to demand versus beds available, and the same with homer shelters actually, so we know that that is there's an increase in demand where where unfortunately sometimes the pathways that we might refer people onto we can't take them are also more limited than they used to be because other
service providers are full. And the pathways to some sort of affordable housing solution is also more difficult now as we all know, than it was a few years back.
So all of those things together present a really complex space and it's it is a wicker problem that government organizations like ours and corporations individuals really need to work together to address, and the government obviously has this high on their agenda around housing first and trying to get as much housing stock into the market as they can to help and address some of these issues. It's not
something that's going to have a short term fix. And this is why events like the sleep out of so critical for us because the funds that we raise you allow us to keep those services open, allow us to respond to their growth in demand for our services.
Well, yes, it draws attention to the organization, but also you want to get some money out of those big companies too, don't you.
That helps, Yeah, that's right. I mean, look, it's the event is works well because as you mentioned, look, it's just we don't pertain that it's going to make people understand what it fat to be home.
It is not at all.
But what it does do is it has a bit of a captured audience with people who are business and community and government leaders who hold influence and can go out and advocate for this issue once they leave the event, and obviously they have good networks in which to raise funds, and so that's really critical for us because as I said, those funds go directly back into service provision to address people who are at risk of already experiencing homelessness, and
so it's critical in that way, but it really is they go there and they hear the stories of people who've had a lived experience with homelessness, and those people who are generous enough to join us on the night to share their stories, and that's their eye opening. So many people, they hear the statistics and the real face of homelessness in Australia, which there's often a lot of
misconception around what homelessness looks like in this country. So they learn a little bit about that, and then you know, we make them feel uncomfortable for a night where they're just cold and a bit uncomfortable, but hopefully while they're not able to sleep, when they're at and cold, they're thinking about the things they've said and the things they've learned, and when they leave they either engage their company, their family, their friends, or when they're in rooms where they can
have those conversations. They're bringing an issue of homelessness and housing and other related issues to the forefront and helping us advocate in those spaces as well.
Yeah, I think it's a very good point to make because you know, it's been going for a while now, as we said, and people get a bit cynical about these things, particularly when they see CEOs doing it. But you're right, you're targeting a particular area of great power and influence, and you can is a lot more money a lot more quickly than you know asking for the average person to make donations. And on that point, you land,
what can people do these days? We associate Venus with donating clothing of course, primarily toys as well, but what other things can people do?
Yeah, there's different ways. I mean, obviously, if people are able to donate one, actually they've got the means and they're able to do that, that's always a great way. But that allows us to then allocate that money where it's most needed, be it to local assystems or be it to our frontline services.
So that's great.
If people can do that, that's fantastic. If not, people can also donate clothing to our Vinie stores and just all the surplus from those shops goes back into the organization again to help us provide all that care and all the services we run run about one hundred services and programs that costs me south well, so it's large, and so having put donations into our shops that we can resell to raise funds to support our services is
really important. And people can volunteer. People can volunteer for the organization, get out on a van, or volunteer in a shop or is they're very interested in providing local care on a regular basis. They can also become a member of the organization. So there's many different ways that people can can lend a hand.
Just on the donations an he does and d'ts when it comes to things like clothing for example.
Yeah, look, we always say if you'd give it to mate, it's okay to donate. So it's a bit pussy, but really do you think, oh, I'll give that to someone that is a friend of mine or someone I'm going to see again, And you can probably donate it to a Vinish shop. So as long as it's in good condition, it can be used by somebody else, you know, not staying or torn or anything like the torn or anything
like that. So as long as you think, yeah, that's in good enough condition that someone else can make good use of it, then yeah, by all means, donate it to us.
Good point and well said thank you very much. Good luck tonight. I hope you can raise heaps of money. Yeah, and help a lot of people. Your lander says, thank you very much again, thanks for having me on. Thank you your landers of course, the New South Whild CEO of s and Vinie And look, as I said, without a couple of comments here about perhaps you know the tokenistic approach from CEOs, but I think you landed made
the point quite well that they're targeting this. It's very important and it's not so much to speak to you through them. It's more about getting to those CEOs themselves and using their power. And you know, in a lot of cases they have plenty of muscle, notwithstanding their own influence within their own corporations, to get money to where it's really needed. It's coming out and don't forget John Stanley from eight o'clock broadcasting from the CEO's Sleepout coming
up to twenty eight to one. Quick look at the text line now, hi, Bill says Patrick. Every time I passed by a Maserati or a Ferrari, I reckon it's a drug dealer, not a CEO. Silly me, Thank you Patrick, Well, you're probably living in Sydney Isn't it funny though? How
we do stereotype other drivers. It's interesting we see what they're driving and we make an assumption based on that, particularly if they've done something otherwise you don't really notice them that much, but yes, when something happens, I wonder if here's the thing for anyone who was around in the seventies. Is the Tesla driver the new Volvo driver? There's a question. There's a question back in the day,
you see, do I have to explain this? I don't know whether I should go there, But you know, Volvo drivers back in the old days, they were They were people who this is the stereotype. Don't get me wrong. It's not my opinion, but the stereotypical thought was as a joke, by the way, too, It's one of those things anyway. The stereotypical gag was that the cardigan wearing Volvo driver was concerned primarily about safety. But they're not
really car people. They buy the vehicle because of its reputation for safety, not because it's a great thing to drive or you know, but they were very good cars. Don't get me wrong. Is the Tesla driver the new Volvo driver? They're driving it for a reason other than being a car person and at liking a good car. They're buying it for other reasons, the environmental responsibility, all those things. Just a thought, Just a thought anyway. Oh okay, Jack wants to talk about state of origin. I'm quite
up for that. I was trying to avoid the topic. No, many kidding. I don't take losses that badly as a New South Wales person. Jack, Hello mate, Hello mate? How well? Thank you? Did you go to origin?
I did?
Yes?
From jere Mumbagart.
Oh wow, yeah, what'd you think?
Half didn't?
But Jack, sorry to interrupt you, mate, I'll have to put you back to the switch and we might have to get you to call back because that line's breaking up just too frequently. I'm sorry, I'm having trouble. Love to talk to you and we'll we'll make another attempt because I was curious. It's great to hear from someone from w A who actually went to state of origin and get their thoughts the bare bones of it, so
to speak. More on the text line, Margaret says, unemployed who have savings are not registered as unemployed and not entitled benefits, So where do they get the unemployment figures a very good point, Vinnie says, Mitch, do a wonderful job. There is an ad they put on TV where a little person sitting on the school steps wearing old school clothes that are obviously very old and don't fitter. And it breaks my heart every time I encourage people to
donate to Vini's. That's nice, Mitch, thank you and well said too. And this one from Anthony. People are still dumping crappy donations out the front of Vinnie's stores. Yes, that's why I asked that question of your lander, because I know a lot of people just think, oh eh, it's Venie's. I'll get rid of it. But as your land to point it out, and it's a good little benchmark there. If you wouldn't give it to a mate, don't bother giving it to Vinie because clearly it's torn
or damaged or dirty in some way. Thank you. And Brian says Bill, I haven't seen any tesla with a hat on the back shelf yet, thank you, Brian. Yes, we're digging into a bit of motoring sociology there, and I must say, with tongue in cheek, it's all good fun. Please don't be offended. I have to say that because it's twenty twenty five. You know, it used to go without saying, but now it has to go with saying. So to speak, Jack, you're back on the line from way.
So jero mumbergup doesn't have the best reception, asked stick boys out.
Here, jereedm hang on, how do you say jeremunga gup, jerem umbergap, jerem mumber gap. Wow? There, No, I have it. I've been to a lot of ups in w A. There's a lot of ups in w A. It's really cool that you go down that coastline and they're everywhere and it's quite exciting.
I think that wasn't up last night was New South Wales unfortunately.
How did you deal with that?
Look?
I'm a Queenslander at heart, so I was pretty happy, but I still think that Queenslander nowhere. They gave New South Wales too much ball in that second half.
Right right.
Yeah.
We had someone complain that we were being two one eyed in a news bulletin, suggesting it had something to do with the goalkicking. But there was also the penalty count and let's not minimize the efforts showed by the Queenslanders as well, because they're under a lot of pressure. I'd written off their pack. I said they didn't have the cattle. But they really really lifted their game. And I think the rain might have helped a bit too. But hey, great game three coming.
Up, let's get into that.
Absolutely, the rain was a big factor. We've had about thirty mili out of here today, so it's bussing it down in Wa.
But do you need it?
Yeah, the crops out here are pretty dry. Yeah, anyway, mate, Yeah, I'll catch up.
So great to hear from you, and I really do miss. I used to go to Wa for a lot of stuff when I was back in my TV days, traveling around all over the place, and loved going to Way went there a lot and just quietly. The Margaret River Winery is not a bad place to visit either. Not to mention the beaches, but you have to be a little bit careful on some of the beaches, particularly the further south you go. Just keep your eyes peeled. It's nineteen to one. I'll be right back. We'll talk about
youth crime. Some interesting stats, I think, some cracking texts on the text line about the sociology of motoring, which we brought up again tongue in cheek just a moment ago.
We'll get back to those pretty soon. It's sixteen to one. Well, unfortunately we're hearing about this a lot in the news every single day, not just in New South Wales, but right across the country for the most part, regional areas allegedly terrorized by groups of teenagers where once we used to hear about kids getting up to the old mischief, you know, vandalism, graffiti, bit of shoplifting. Certainly there were gang wars between teenagers back in the days, we know that,
but it was usually fisticuffs. It seems like these days where often hearing about youth crimes involving serious assaults with weapons for example. And the most recent case, of course in New South Wales that's been shocking everyone is a fourteen year old charged not convicted with rape in company with other teenagers. That case, of course will be born out in court, but it made me wonder, if there's not more youth crime, is it more serious and if
so why. Jackie Fitzgerald is the executive director of the New South Wales Bureau of Crime, Statistics and Research. Thanks for your time, Jackie.
Hi there, Bill.
Well, firstly, let's deal with the frequency thing and get that out of the way if we can in your observations of the data, how frequent is youth crime generally compared to previous generations or is it more about how we're processing it.
Look, I know it doesn't feel like this, Bill, but there's actually much less youth crime in the present day than there was, say, fifteen years ago, and we've got a number of sources for that. So primarily we're looking at police recorded incidents and the number of charges police are laying against young people. And if we compare the current year versus the high point is actually around twenty
two thousand and eight. If we compare the change over those sixteen year periods, we're looking at about a thirty percent decline in the number of young people who are brought to court Biden Southwest Police. And we can also see those figures burning out in the court appearances themselves. And also if you look at the custody Figures Bill, we've got about half as many young people in custody the present day than we did in two thousand and eight.
So really, young people today are offending at a much lower rate than they were fifteen or sixteen years ago. And I don't know, it doesn't always feel like that, and there's always these horrible crime stories, and you know, I don't want to defend those in any way or stretch of the imagination, but it is the case that young people these days are less inclined to get involved in crime than they were a generation ago.
And of course you've just told us about custodial figures there, So anyone who's getting a bit cynical and thinks they're just hiding the figures, it's pretty hard to hide that. If anyone's actually been charged and arrested, then all that's recorded.
Yeah, there's no question that police are very cognizant of the concerns about youth crime. And I don't think anyone is accusing yourself whiles police or growing soft on youth crime. So we're really taking their figures and looking at how many young people they are charging or they can also caution a young person, and all of the metrics suggest to decline. And you know, even if we look at the crime rates, actually most of our crimes have also declined.
It is the case Bill that over a person's life, they are more likely to be involved in crime in that kind of late adolescent time than at any other point in your life. So if you imagine that kind of risk taking behavior that you imagine, even some of your listeners look back on certain behaviors that they engaged in as a child. I wouldn't dream of doing that now. But it's still the case that over your life's course, you're more likely to be involved in crime at a
young age than at any other time. But what we're finding is that fewer young people these days are involved in crime, even though it still is the time of your life that you're most likely to be involved in crime, if that's the path you go down.
So we'll go to the next obvious question then, Jackie, and that's great news. Is that Okay, if we're seeing fewer offenders, are these fewer offenders actually committing more serious crimes? Do you have any stats that WAGH that are.
The crime bit is higher than it was sixteen years ago? Is car theft? So if we compare the rates of car theft and also young people proceeded against the car theft now, it's about fifty percent higher than in two thousand and eight, So that's the offense that really is jumping out and that increase has happened kind of post COVID really, so two thousand and one and twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two we started to see this increase in car theft and that is associated with an increase in
young people's offending. So that's the offense that is fucking this general decline. But other offenses that I know are in the public eye that people are concerned about, and I guess breaking entry is one of the ones that jumps out there. We're still seeing break in rates that are much lower than they were historically, and things like
a robbery is another very concerning offense. So there's like a violent theft defense with we concerning offense, yes, that is much less common than it was, so about half as common for young people to participate in robbery than they once were, and we're not seeing any evidence of a an uptick there. So I think it is true that this car theft is probably the problematic offense, and hopefully there's something of a trend there that will die away.
Because we are seeing some places or some parts of particularly regional New South Wales, where car theft increased in twenty twenty two, has since the decline, so it's something of a temporary popular behavior. Unfortunately that has a peak and then starts to wane, and hopefully that's how it goes for the rest of the New South Wales.
This might be harder to measure. I don't know, but have you seen any correlation with social media? Obviously that has played a role. It's been quite well, forgive the term, but it is visible literally when we see these crimes.
Yeah, look, that increase in car theft is it does definitely seems to be associated with people posting about their offending and really some quite I guess, bragging about their exploits on social media. That seems to be a factor in that car theft increase. So the government have legislated to outlaw posting those kind of of videos. We still haven't seen a huge volume of charges under that particular legislation, but you know, hopefully that will help turn the tide.
But I think that is a real problem and one of the reasons why we have seen an uptick in that particular offense. So some other offenses possibly aren't as you don't get as much credibility or bragging rights if you post about your shop lifting or something some other more minor offenses.
One more quick question before I let you go, and that is recidivism. Are we seeing many repeat offenders now or is that basically as it always has been.
I think Bill, the issue is that there's a lot of young people that maybe once would have got involved in crime, but are not are not now. They're engaged in other pursuits, and often indoor pursuits. We know that young people pretty attracted to the gaming console, My children are, and that's you know, for all the harms associated with that, there is possibly a protective element in terms of antisocial behavior.
But those kids that do get involved in the criminal justice system, they do reoffend, unfortunately, and young people do have those few young people that are in the criminal justice system do have high rates of refending, so we haven't seen a lot of benefit there. But we are talking about a smaller cohort than in previous times, so that's you know, there's some complexity in the picture.
But that's generally very comforting news. Jackie Fitzgerald, thank you so much for your time.
Thanks Bill.
Seven to one Gee, lots of feedback about this, some anger on the text line suggesting Jackie's not accurate. Well, look, what can you do. It's the Bureau of Statistics. I don't have any basis on which to say that she's wrong. Jackie's in charge of the statistics. But we have some people who are quite anger about this, and I'll get
back to that. We're running up towards news time, and we will get back to your comments on the car gag we had about the Tesla driver being the new Volvo driver, etc. And I have to say before we continue that conversation. I am a subero ambassador too, So look, even though it's not really connected to that conversation, I am obliged to tell you that and more than happy to do so. So take for whatever I say for what it's worth in that regard. But we will get
back to that conversation as well. But to tell you what, some people are saying that just can't be right on the text line regarding these youth crime statistics. So we'll get back to that after this. Well, I knew there'd be a few people who are skeptical about those youth crime stats we talked about with Jackie Fitzgerald, this is the new South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. But I must say I wasn't prepared for the volume
of people who were skeptical about it. And I must say I don't have anything even anecdotally with which to challenge Jackie's data. But Paul says total lies. The reason the stats are down is because Young Offenders Act doesn't allow the charging of juveniles, so their caution which doesn't get recorded as an offense or conviction. I'm a police officer and can tell you youth crime is worse than ever,
particularly summary offenses where their behavior intimidates people. Very interesting, the lady says, Daryl can give all the reasons about youth crime dropping, but comparing it to back then, it doesn't take into account the warnings given and different types of correctional mediations. Back in the day we didn't have those. And this from Gary, these stats must be wrong. There's no way there's less youth crime. I'm a police officer and youth crime is rampant. So it's two police officers.
What a load of bs. Never in my lifetimes crime being worse. Disgusting live, says Robin. A lot of people are very angry about this. Sue says. All I can say is a lot of crime must be unreported because I find that these crime statistics are not telling it as it is. Michael, like ninety eight percent of everyone else listening, I don't believe a word of what that woman from the APS just said. She's fooling nearly no one except herself and her cohort and the ABS bunker.
I think what a lot of people are suggesting is that a lot of these crimes are being for various reasons, which two people who said they are police officers have said also that it's just not being officially reported. Very interesting. Keep that feedback going. We've got a lot more coming up too. We'll get back to the cars as well after the news now.
On GGB and network stations back two afternoons with Bill Woods filling in from Michael McLaren.
Yes, another action packed our coming up for you. We hope you'll enjoy it. We've got our regular guest annacor Day talking entertainment and just to tick, including the latest and greatest midday film. Marcia Hines. I'm so excited will be in the studio. A massive fan of Marsha Hines. She's got a new remixed single, she's going on tour and I think I don't know. We'll ask you if she's going to come back and do more judging on Australian Idol as well for the next season when that's due.
So that's a little look at the next hour ahead of us. And boy oh boy, are people getting upset about the youth crime statistics and the Australian or in fact the new South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics And the interview we did with Jackie Fitzgerald just before the news so in case you've just tuned in, we had a couple of ex police officers, including and a number of other people basically saying they can't believe those official statistics. Now.
I did question Jackie on how these statistics ocessed and whether it's custodial figures as opposed to actual charges, but she insisted that the youth crime generally is down, and even when I asked her about repeat offenders and whether crime was more severe if it wasn't more prolific, she still said things are getting better and people just cannot believe it. She's off her tree says this text message
young people are less in numbers. I think they mean young offenders are less in numbers because police or the courts are not pursuing them. And that's a common thread with a number of people who've also said that, for example Al who says he's an ex copper. These days it's very hard to report anything. It's convoluted and people
just don't bother. So that's another interesting angle that they're saying that a lot of youth crime is not even reported, therefore it won't even come across the desk of the
New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics. Greg So pointed to one of the little intricacies of measuring these things when he said, well, I wonder how you steal a car without breaking into someone's house first and stealing the keys, which we've seen a lot in these small towns and regional areas where gangs are doing just that, and when they do break into the homes, they're armed, Thank you, Greg. That is of course disturbing a lot of people, particularly
elderly people in those areas. And that look is We've got so many texts on this, and I think that basically covers a lot of what people are saying, and that is their are statistics, and their are statistics. Diane also points out, and I think I did bring this up in the interview, if one person is committing multiple crimes to zak count and I did bring that up Diane about repeat offenders. But again Jackie insisting that the
stats are better than you think they are. If you believe those stats, you believe in the tooth fairies is Karla. There you go, and on it goes. There are many others, thank you. I think I've covered well. Another person who claims to work in retail saying that it's rife in stores now and basically nothing could be done about it. And a couple of people have pointed out too that and it's almost contradictory because when you think about it, these instances would not be reported in the stats either.
But they're saying that back in the old days, a copper grab you by the scuff of the net, kick you in the backside and take you back to your parents' place for a good talking to or something like that. But of course that wouldn't have been a statistic back then either. But anyway, look, I'm you know, I don't want to keep going on about how good the good old days were, because there were things about the good
old days that weren't so good. But I do believe that lack of respect for police these days and authority generally, and the inability of police to just exercise a little bit of that muscle for want of a better term, might come in handy these days. But of course, you know, they can't go anywhere near that kind of behavior on the contrary. Anyway, there you go, lots of people calling in about that or texting in about that. Thank you
very much for your feedback. We really appreciate it. I promised to get back to the car comment, and I do have to insist that I must disclose I'm a Subero embassador before we have any conversations like this. I did bring it up earlier. Is the Tesla driver the new Volvo driver because they drive cars that because they think they're being responsible rather than just doing it to be cool as opposed to the old days. You know, those sorts of things. Had a lot of feedback on that,
which was quite amusing. This one from Sam the camera driver is the new Volvo driver. There you go, I hadn't really thought about that. And this one is just a very kind text message about I have written a book about motorsport legends called Legends of Speed. Yes, thank you, Chris. I'm glad you enjoyed the book. That was a few years ago. Now I wrote that book. This one again.
The new Volvo drivers are camera drivers, says Anton. Okay, so that the old camera is getting a bit of a run there, and Tesla's definitely the new Volvo, says this one, and a few other people agreeing with that. Some people are saying, there you go, and I disclosed as a Superuo ambassador. This person is saying Volvo drivers became Subaru drivers who were now Tesla drivers. He's laughing though, Mitch when he says that, you got the lol on the end of it. So there you go. Bit of
motoring sociology. It's always a bit of fun when you're sitting in traffic trying to work out why people do the stupid things they do, and you know, we come up with stereotypes. All right, that's that I reckon we should talk a bit of screen.
Stuff now on afternoon, and I says screen torch.
On a much lighter note again, Hello anakor day, good to catch up with you again.
Good to talk to you.
Bill.
Now let's start with the midday movie since I last filled in for Michael. This is a new thing, and I must say, back in the old days, going back to when I was a kid, and that's a few decades now, there was always a midday film. This has been around for a long time.
It is a pretty, i guess, a staple of our TV viewing these days. As you say, it's been going on for a long time. I used to love tuning in and you know, you'd have a sick day from school and you'd watch some weird movie from the sixties. Perfect. But look, I've been putting myself through the horrors of the mediocre midday movies for the last few weeks, and this week I was relieved to actually find one that's a little bit better than mediocre. This one is an
Australian movie. It's a bit of a sci fi thriller.
It's called Monolith.
The official synopsis is, while trying to salvage her career, a disgraced journalist begins investigating a strange conspiracy theory. So we're off to a good start. However, as the trail leads uncomfortably close to home. She's left to grapple with the lies at the heart of her own story. So look, it sounds like it'd be absolutely awful, but it actually is not that bad. I was very pleasantly surprised. There is a bit of alien stuff going on, so that's
always going to pique the interest. And look, I just needed something that wasn't a murderous sister out for revenge or a gymnast tangled in a web of lies.
This week.
I will also say, so this is airing right now on nine Go. It also so then leads into an absolute banger of an afternoon if you were I kind of wish I was homesick right now so I could be watching The Golden Girls and then The Nanny. I mean, I don't think it gets better.
Is The Golden Girl still going?
Of course it?
I mean why shouldn't please? Yeah, why shouldn't it?
I mean that's you don't even need to know what season or what episode, you just watch it.
That's true, That is quite right. It's one of those series and I think you probably throw Seinfeld in there that you could just jump in anywhere and it still makes sense.
The Nanny Friends phil and Grace. It all works now.
Just quickly on that, I noticed Damon Harryman is in the cast of Monolith, and he's a good Aussie actor. Is this an Aussie film?
It is an Aussie film. It was made in twenty twenty two. He's probably the biggest name out of the cast in there. The rest of them are all kind of up and comers, but it is an Australian film. Monolith on nine go right.
Now now with the movies, the twenty eight series. It started with twenty eight Days Later, which was such an innovative and very well made zombie film. For those who hate zombie films, this might be one you might want to see. But now they've moved on. Where did go from there? And it went to twenty eight weeks or something?
We had twenty eight weeks later. That's right. That wasn't necessarily seen as the best film or the best sequel. And of course that one wasn't directed or written by Danny Boyle and Alex Garland. They're the ones who created that first film, and as you say, it was such an innovative film. But they are finally back at the helm of this new one. So this is twenty eight years later. So, as we can understand, twenty eight days later was twenty eight days after a zombie outbreak. Twenty
eight weeks later, twenty eight weeks after the outbreak. Now we are twenty eight years on. So the setup for these films is that this virus outbreak has happened in the UK. It's all contained to the UK, so the rest of the world life is going on, so the virus is contained. Although twenty eight weeks later did try to imply that it had spread to Europe, they've kind of shut that down and ignored that for this one,
so right, pretending it didn't happen. So in this one, as I said, it's twenty years on, twenty eight years on this you know, people are still living there. There are lots of zombies around. They've started to mutate. They've turned into alphas and some weird, fat, slow ones, quite entertaining to look at. That's the best way I can describe them. They've got official names. But that's what it is, zombie shaming, you know, but wait until you see it.
It's a lot.
It is a lot, and none of them have clothes because of course the clothes that they were in when they turned into zombies have disintegrated in twenty eight years.
They're closed to citic great, but they don't rot. It always makes me wonder why don't they finish up as skeletons or something. I can't figure that out.
In Zombie Willing, I don't quite care to look into the science behind this virus. But all I know is the clothes are not clothes anymore. So you will see a lot of naked zombies. I am giving you a warning you the film though. This setup is that you know, a few societies have kind of re emerged within England. They're living in kind of secluded Little Air is one such family, living on a little island. They go to the mainland. Young Spike, he's kind of the focus of
this film. His mum needs a bit of help, so he ventures to the mainland to seek said help, and he finds that maybe things aren't quite what he expected on the mainland, where it's you know, being run over by mutant zombies. I'm a bit vague there because I don't want to spoil any plot points, because while I personally hate zombies and horror, I can admit that this is a brilliant film, and we have Aaron Taylor Johnson,
Jody Comer, and Rafe Fines among the cast. Also for a zombie film, there is so much emotion in this so I was crying from both pure fear and pure emotion in this movie, which is quite a feat. It is absolutely terrifying. Though you will also see a lot of human spines, so I warn you on that. Fans of the franchise, though, eat your heart out.
Nude zombies and spines and Ray Fines thrown into the mix. That's what they're not mucking around. They get him on.
Oh no, okay, and he's taking his role very seriously in this. Also, I'm not going to reveal anything, but this is setting up another film that has been written that's kind of like a sequel. It's called The Bone Temple. All ties back to that very first film twenty eight days later. You'll see what I mean when you see the last few minutes of this film, and it's all setting up what's to come, I think.
But it's a lot because there is so many zombie franchises now, and can you remember I think in this series the zombies are fast, aren't they.
They're fast, and the virus spreads very quickly, so as soon as essentially kind of once you're bitten, you're gone. It takes a couple of minutes. And yes, that is they kind of address it so that this virus has then now kind of acted almost like a like a stimulant, a steroid, and so it's really transformed. That's why they've started to mutate.
Yeah, I don't like the fast ones. They're scary.
Yes I would if it's on the outbreak happened. I'm not running, I'm not doing anything. Just take me out.
Did you see that scene in World War Z where they sort of piled on top of each other as they invaded the walls of the city. That was quite nepicure.
They tend to do that.
Yeah, not looking forward to that day. No, Ellie, Let's move on. Elio. What's the about?
This one is much more my speed and it is as far away from twenty eight years later as you can get. So Elio is the new offering from Disney Pixar. So Elio, he's a bit of a loner, he's a bit of an underdog. He's got a very vivid imagination and one day he gets boom beamed. I can't even speak. Beamed up to the communiverse now looks stay with me.
The Communiverse is an interplanetary organization that brings together beings from all galaxies and planets, and they have somehow mistaken the child that is Elo as the ambassador to f Look. It is a bit of a kooky premise. It is such a delightful movie though, there's so much high in it. It's sweet, it's visually stunning. It's all about, you know, finding your place in the world or within the galaxies, and accepting yourself and kindness, and that's all of the
things that we want to be teaching young kids. It's just a really really sweet family film and another home run from Pixar they never miss.
Yeah, that's a little bit like that movie where the kid became a starfighter or something for another civilization on another planet. I don't know, maybe I'm mixing my films up anyway, it.
Sounds a bit like that. They've all got pretty similar premises and they're all teaching valuable lessons.
Yeah, now the Waterfront we're getting onto streaming now, my goodness, there's been some great shows. If you've seen that Department Q. I don't know whether you've talked about.
That one is fantastic, Yeah, Flix, very good, great characters in that show. Yes, it'll bit kind of like Slow Horses in a way it is.
Isn't that funny because that's exactly what I thought, which is a ripper show Slow Horses. Love that the lines that Gary Oldman gets in that show, it's fantastic. Anyway, we're talking Waterfront, what's all that about?
This one is coming out on Netflix to It's a little bit kind of like a succession style show. It is based on true events, so it centers around the Buckley family. They own a fishing empire in North Carolina. It's in a bit of trouble for various reasons. But when a ship runs aground and some illicit cargo is discovered, a succession battle and a conflict is triggered between the patriarch of this fishing family and his heir apparent. So look,
it's not quite succession, you know. It doesn't have that razor shup with that succession has, but it does kind of fill the somewhat gaping hole that succession has left. It's just an easy drama to watch and it's going to be on Netflix today.
And moving on. We've got a couple of others to get through as well. We were Liars.
Yes, this one is out on Prime Video today. Well it's out already, actually, I think it's just dropped. So this one is a little bit kind of like Pretty Little Liars meets I Know What You Did Last Summer meets a little bit of a succession mixed in there as well, but it centers around a rich girl. Her name is Cadence. Her group of friends are called the Liars, and I mean, look, personally, it's not the kind of name that I would watch to give my friend group.
I wouldn't want us to be known as the Lies. But anyway, we move on. But they spend their summers on Cadence's grandpa's private island. They're rich, old money kind of people, you know, so they have their own private island. But something very dramatic and mysterious happens. I'm not going to reveal what because that's all part of the enjoyment that you get when you watch this show. But it changes everything for not only Cadence but the Liars, and
it appears everyone is hiding something. So good old classic mystery deceit lies all of that, it is surprisingly good. I did kind of think it'd be a bit tacky, you know, you know, spoiled rich kids being awful. But there is a lot of substance, a lot of twists, a lot of turns and it so it will hook you right in. So that's we were liars on Prime Video and moving.
On to Apple TV. Now for The Buccaneers.
Yes, this is purely just for me because I have a guilty pleasure with this show. If you haven't watched The Buccaneers yet, think Bridgeton meets the Gilded Age. So it's America, it's the eighteen seventies wealthy girls. In the first season, we're introduced to this group of girls. They're sent to London to procure some wealthy husbands. There's a bit of a culture clash and some complicated love triangles
and all sorts of drama. So season one ended on a big cliff cliffhanger and there was a bit of a scandal. So now we're back and we're learning the repercussions. And look, I know that the show isn't for everyone, but I love it so much and so if anyone is missing Bridgetton, this is the one that you need to watch in between seasons. So this is the Buccaneers on Apple TV Plus.
I was kind of hoping it'd be about pirates, but.
Unfortunate, I know, a bit of a confusing title. No pirates, lots of girls in pretty dresses.
Well I'll get enough stuff to look at anyway. So there's plenty of content there, as they say in the classics. Andna great to catch up with you again, of course, So when Michael gets back next week, you'll do it again.
Thank you so much.
There she is, Anna Corday was screen Talk twenty seven past one News coming up and then the great Marsha Hines will be in the studio. In my heart will skip a beat. But in the meantime we've got an interesting yarn came through. We mentioned the influence of social media on youth crime in our chat with Jackie a little earlier from the Bureau of Statistics in New South Wales. Now bit of a setback for the federal government's plan
to restrict social media for kids under the age of sixteen. Yes, remember that they got the legislation through and this social media ban which is due to start in December, Well they reckon more than twenty million Australians will now be required or then be required to demonstrate that they are
sixteen or older when you log into social media. Okay, but the government has been trying to work out in the meantime, that is, from the passing of the legislation to the implementation of it, how it's all going to work. And it's been trialing a bunch of technologies for about eight months and so far there are a lot of questions,
not too many answers yet. For example, the ABC's reporting today that children as young as fifteen were repeatedly misidentified as being in their twenties and thirties when the government was testing age check tools. It's face scanning basically, and they've tested it on school students this year and at best they could only guess their age within about eighteen
months in eighty five percent of the cases. The full results of the what they call Age Assurance Technology trial are not expected to be released until later this year, but apparently the experts are a little worried. Some of the students at Canberra's John Paul College who previewed the technology as part of the trial, were surprised when their results were up to decades off the mark. The face scanning technology actually thought they were much older than they
really were. There are a lot of other age estimation techniques that rely on things like voice and hand movements and even the kinds of things they search for on the Internet. Other tools have a higher degree of certainty, but that involves a bit of invasion of privacy so to speak, you know, third party checks such as banks, schools, healthcare providers and even the dreaded drivers license or passport indeed for ID. The more we go down that road,
of course, the more people will complain. So they're trying to find simpler ways of identifying people under the age of sixteen who are trying to get on the Internet are indeed into social media spaces. It looks like there'll be a combination of all these measures when they ultimately get around to it, and they might do it in stages, start with facial recognition and then go on from there and get down and deeper into more different ways of
identifying you. But anyway, a spokesperson for the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, has said the government would be guided by advice from the E Safety Commissioner on how to implement this ban. So I think a lot of people in principle thought it was a good idea. How are they going to make it work? Little way off yet, will find out. News coming up. Good afternoon, Aaron Mark, Good afternoon.
Bill of warnings been issued for Legionaez disease. Three people who live in Pot's Point have been diagnosed and cooling towers in the area are being checked. Three men accused of making almost ten million dollars selling fake luxury goods online are making a bid for bail, with lawyers arguing
the case is misconceived. The unemployment rate has held steady over the last month, but the reading is slightly weaker than expected because there's been a small fall in the participation rate and almost three and a half thousand people have tested positive for COVID nineteen in the week ending the fourteenth of June, are ten percent rise on the previous week. In Sport, the Broncos have received a triple
boost in the NL. Captain Adam Reynolds, sent A, Tony Stags and rising hooker Blake Mosa have all re signed with the club.
And there'll be more news at two o'clock on afternoons.
Oh Weather update.
We'll be here to help in unexpected weather. Nrimain Insurance a help company.
And as we discussed yesterday in the Sydney area, pretty stable top of seventeen this afternoon mostly sunny again with just a light wind here and there. Looking at the central tablelands, partly cloudy, had a bit of frost in a few places this morning and some fog indeed, also light winds. Daytime. Top temperature well, it varies, averaging out at thirteen but in some places as low as eleven today and others as high as sixteen. That's the central tablelands.
Looking at the Capitol, also pretty solid but a little bit chilly, partly cloudy and a top of eleven degrees, light winds northerly fifteen to twenty k's around now. They're expecting it in Canberra those wins, but generally rug up. I think there'll be a lot of puffer jackets on display coming up the Great Marsia heins right here twenty four to two A. Doesn't they bring back memories? But there are many others too. And have you noticed something
about that track? Think I think I've detected something about that track because I know the song very well. I could be wrong. I've been wrong plenty of times before. But let's get the person who should know right here with us. And I'm very, very excited actually to be able to talk to her in the studio. Marsia. Heines, thank you so much for coming in.
My total pleasure. How are you? You're so right though, Yeah, we've changed it up a bit. That song.
It's a little bit bit faster, a little.
Bit fast, a little bit funkier, a little bit twentieth first century?
Is that because the kids today are faster than we were. I don't know. I'm just saying. I'm just saying I don't want to. I don't want to even call you a music legend because a lot of people get called that and that's kind of passe. Really, you are a national treasure. I've been listening to you and watching you for so long, and we were just saying, I haven't seen you for a long time, but I had hair
the last time we actually ran into each other. But over the years doing TV geets and things like that, do you remember performing in someone's backyard in Mossman once? I think you were working with Channel ten in some capacity and there was some station we had a party there thing a thing I do, and you were performing in the backyard. And I remember my wife saying to me at the time. She was there and she said,
I can't believe this. We've got Marcia Hines performing for us with a band in the backyard, and not our backyard. I hastened to add it as the sea at the time, it was anyway, and she was saying, I bet no one's complaining about the noise.
I hope not, anyway, I hope not.
Now tell me, I I We've got a lot to get through here. You were you were doing a tour with Casey Donovan.
Yes, I am.
And it's called Marsha's Seeing Summer. And we're not talking about the time of year here, No, it's no.
No, We're talking about donna summer songs. And it's me actually paying homage to Donna because I grew up with Donna in Boston and Donna became quite famous, but before she became famous, her sister was my best friend and her name is Linda, and Linda and I hung out and Donn was older than us, and you know, like when you have a girl around you that's older than you, you always tend to go through her things when she
wasn't home. Yes, we did, and she hated us consequently, But Donna left Boston to do a play called Porgy and Best in Germany, and then her sister did hair in Boston. And Linda said to me, oh, because we used to always sing around and do talent shows when we were kids. And Linda said, oh, come and do hair in Boston with me. It'll be a hoot. And I said, I don't really want to stay in Boston. I want to go to Chicago or maybe New York
or LA. But I don't want to go. I don't want to just do a show and stay in Boston. And so she said, okay, fair enough. So she did hair in Boston. And then auditions were held specifically for black kids to come to Australia for Harry and Miller. Let's do to do hair? And I did the audition and about maybe I don't know, it's a bit of a day's but I think, you know, like no longer than a week and a half hours in Australia.
And you were just a teenage thinks in fact, didn't Harry have to become your guardian something?
Until I was twenty one.
Yeah, yeah, good guy, And boy there's been a lot happened since then.
You bet, yeah, you know, and look, I look back on it and I'm so grateful for the opportunities that have arisen, and I'm just glad I grabbed them and I did what I could. And you know, you never know, you know what I mean. I didn't come to Australia to be famous. I just came for six months and I'm still here.
But well, I think we got the better end of the deal, Marshia. Just between us, it was our win. It was our win.
You.
I want to talk a little bit about Donna Summer too, because you know, again just checking back, I was spinning her discs when I was a DJ, just starting out, trying to find a job in radio, a long, long time ago. And it's interesting. I will talk in a bit more detailed about music of the seventies. I want to talk about that because I'm a bit snobby. The Donna's sometimes referred to as queen of disco.
Now I think she was if you think about it, because you know, I remember when we were in Boston and I first heard Love to Love Your Baby. We all went, oh, Donna.
That was saucy.
There was saucy because we were all brought up in church. You know, most black kids in America brought up in church. And we couldn't believe Donna done that. We were thought, but that's really cool. But Donna, you make it in trouble by your parents for singing like that. But yeah, and then you know, I mean she just set a standard and agreed standard. You know, it's funny when you look at careers. I think Donna was like, really one of the best people to come out of Boston besides
Bete Davis, Bete Davis from New England. Yeah, but yeah, I think Donna really put Boston on the.
Map, and I think people need to know because there's a lot of depth, a lot of bands and artists. Yes, did disco back then, Yes, it is, you know, frowned upon by some people in hindsight, but there was good disco and bad disco like anything else. We had jazz musicians, yes, putting out disco albums and records back in the day, and there was some really cool stuff. It just happened to have a different beat. And Donna had a lot of depth to a performance.
I think so but I have a theory about the disco era, and that would be because we'd gone through a very heavy time being the Vietnam.
War, of course, and the war was over.
And then all of a sudden, you know, there was a thing called disco with bad fashion, interesting music shoes that it was so high you could fall over and kill yourself in, you know. But it was a wonderful time, and I think we needed some joy after, you know, such a tumultuous time with the Vietnam War. Because when I came to Australia, I met so many soldiers who had served, who were coming to Sydney for R and R and then sent back to America. Yeah, we heard
some you know, pretty heroing stories. And also it kind of made us feel with doing the play hair, we were doing the right thing because that was a great demonstration for us about the Vietnam War.
Yeah, good point. Again, a lot of depth to that show, more so than it appeared. And talking about the depth in Donna's music, the reason I brought that up is because she did a lot of other stuff besides disco. In fact, some of her albums were quite sophisticated.
Oh yeah, fine, singer do you have a favorite particular song's song, I like, I'm State of Independent. Oh yes, that's one of my favorite ones.
Yeah, yeah, that is a bit that was a big Was that her biggest hitle?
Because well a thing loved to love your Baby, of course, but I think she did very well. Then she did some big time writing with the guys in London who wrote for Kylie Minogue, you know, ah right, yeah.
So that's a big deal. Is that thinking about your own career as well? Is hooking up with good songwriters.
You never know. You hope for the best, you know. I mean I had great I write myself, but I had great people like Jimmy Web writing for me, you know. And when you get a Jimmy Web song, there's a Masha Han song, I'd rather sing Jimmy because Jimmy's just He's like one of my idols.
He keeps cropping up. Every time you talk to an artist who's had success in that era, Jimmy Webb comes up in the conversation a lot.
Yes, and I'm donea saying MacArthur.
Park of course. Oh yeah, yeah, I.
Mean a good songwriter. Is this nothing like Brett Backerach, you know those people Paul mccarttey were talking about Paul mc cotty, the Beatles, good music, and you know, it's all storytelling at the end of the day. So you hear something that resonates with you and you tell the story with your voice. It's a beautiful thing to do.
I was playing a seventies track the other day at home. It was an Ambrosia song. Oh yes, one of those bands that didn't really get a massive profile. You could argue there are a one hit wonder, but they actually yeah, but they actually did some pretty good stuff, but they were There were just so many good acts around in those days.
Is yeah.
And I was living in LA at that point in time, so there were incredible bands like.
Total Yeah, you know, similar band.
Incredible music that was happening out of LA. But I think, you know, like I said, you know that whole hippie revolution with people like Jimmy Hendrickson. You know, you got Fleetwood Mac. I listened to music a lot. The best thing about listening to music, I always hear something new in every track. Oh I didn't hear that before, you know, So I tend to listen, But I do tend to listen. I drove my family crazy listening to music.
I'll get back to that point after the break, but before the break, I wanted to also say that when I played that track, my son said, I know that song, and I said, I bet it was remix somewhere by somebody because he likes rap. Of course he does same, And sure enough he played me a track where someone had remixed a chorus from this Ambrosia song and which I believe it's just gone off the I can't think of which song it was at the moment, but it doesn't matter. I wanted to ask you too, this is
your own remix of your own song. But how many songs from your ear that that real hub in the seventies and eighties have been sampled now?
A lot?
And that's a good thing. That means that the music that you've chosen is good music.
You know.
You don't sample bad stuff, do you, you know? Yeah, So it's good and it resonates obviously with an audience then and now, and that's what you can only dream of as a musician, dream of it.
We'll take a quick break. Marsh's going to stay with us, which is very kind of you, and we'll talk about your tour, where you're going in all those things, and Casey, your relationship with Casey will also I want to get a little bit more, just not in a lot of detail because it don't sound like a cranky old man, but just how good that music was and why back in those days eleven to two, where privilege to talk to the great Marsha. Heines this afternoon and all the
texts coming through, wonderful to hear. Marsha had the pleasure a few brief meeting system, a beautiful soul, some lovely comments coming through. Marsha the queen of Australian music, stunning, all that kind of stuff. Bill, it seems we both have a crush on Marsha, says Mitch. These are well, I think she's I think she's spoken for Mitch, so you know, but anyway, hang in there, mate, keep the faith, you know. Listen, Marsha, we got another text which is
in capital letters. It's break streaming it, that's screaming, yeah, breaking news. It says, can you confirm or deny? This is to me that during those disco years way back, did you ever own and wear a pair of flares? Well, the answer is yes, and not only that, but I had a pair of platform shoes as well.
But you got to tell them the color purple.
How bad was that?
It's pretty bad. But we're talking about clothes, you know, and I just reckon staying alone by the Beg's was such a big song because of what those guys wore and we are. I remember we had floored a ceiling screen in one of the discothechts I used to go to, and we'd all we'd be dancing and then they'd come up and we're just sort of standing here with her arms crossed, proving at the border truth of a matter.
Yeah, well, that's all right, it was I. I'll come back to that because I don't want to wate store. I get about five minutes, so I want to make sure we get through. Tell us about the tour, tell us about Casey, how it came about where you're going.
Sure, So I'm Casey Donovan actually won Austraian Idol, and Casey Donovan remains one of the nicest kids I've mat not a kid, she's a woman, but she's just a solid human being and I'm looking forward to singing with her. I'm looking forward to working with We did a song on Idol just recently. She's just a solid human being, you know, and she's a very gifted girl. And yeah, it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be We're gonna do Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, so should should be.
And the full Summer song book most of.
It, not the full one, the ones that everybody knows, because it's funny because I'm studying now, and I'm studying and there's so many songs. So I say to my Google thing, play a Donna Summers station and some of the songs I've never heard of in my life before I go on, I have a puppy. I have a new puppy and he's just about seven or maybe about four months four and a half months old. His name is Brother.
R A t h A.
And because I have a cat called Sister s I s t EH. Anyway, I leave the radio on for them, and I listened to g B and Hi, guys, I wish I had a camera. That's me.
They'll be happy that mom's listening.
Yeah, that's it.
Are you going to sing? Heaven knows? Steve requested, there you go, Steve, that's good and look, I want to get back to the sampling and the reason why I brought that up and the remix of you right, is that despite the fact that people you know might sniff a disco, the seventies and eighties was a hub of amazing music, amazing songwriting and music mentioned Jimmy Wab of course there are many others. We had a little celebration of Paul McCartney today because it turned eighty three. Now.
It was such a high standard and I am still I admit I'm still digging back into the seventies to find stuff that I didn't even have time to listen to Marshall.
But that's that's a great thing about growing older. You have now you're busy bringing up a family and making a career for yourself, and now you can and that's the greatest thing. You know, music. I was saying to the girls out outside about music. And just like we have, our nose have got a memory, Our noses have got a memory of smell. I think our ears have got an incredible library of sounds. And I remember most songs
I hear. I know where I was, I know what I was doing, and I think that's a beautiful thing. It's a large part of the tapestry of our lives music.
And you had such a great array of songs as well as the stuff you write yourself and what inspired you to write back then, And I think Sting put it well in an interview. We both know, oh what, Yeah, he did some good stuff, there's no doubt about that. But he made a comment in an interview with Rick Piarto on YouTube. He does a music channel on YouTube, and he said, I want a song to surprise me. In other words, when you're listening to it, you go
at some stage, oh wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, I didn't know that was on whether it's an instrument or a part of the melody, the hook, it's just and there was so much of that back then.
But also, you know, when I hear a song or if I sing, and I like working with other singers because they'll sing something so totally different to the way I would interpret it. And that's why I'm looking forward to working with Casey.
Yeah, that that'll be and you're going to do mixture of jewets and other stuff.
Absolutely, we'll be there for the whole two hours or whatever, and we'll have a full band and we'll have singers and horn players should be wonderful.
And that was the other thing too that I mentioned to my son in that little conversation about remixes and stuff and sampling, is the harmonies in those days were amazing. I think people just took them for granted.
Well you think the total yes, yep, tennsec Doobie Brothers.
It goes on and on. A lot of that was down to Ham. It doesn't matter what kind of music it is. Have Have you gone back to Idol for next year? Is that gonna have again?
I'm blessed. I'm doing Idle again and it's the most enjoyable show. And I was saying to somebody today, the thing is I came here at sixteen. Please everybody remember this. I was a kid and that was a pain. And I'm very inquisitive by nature. And all I ever did was ask people like Regg Livermore and John Waters, how do you do that? If I were to do that, blah blah blah. And they never closed their dressing room door on me. They never said, Masha, go away, you
being a pain. They always fed me with the information I needed. And that's what you see me doing to the kids on idol, Do you know what I mean? I think kindness breeds kindness and you know, and it's my pleasure to work with the kids. And there's such game individuals. I don't know if I would have done it. I don't know, but I don't do hypothetical thinking. But I don't know if I would have done it.
It's uh, I think you would have. But it's a small market here. But there's so much talent, isn't there.
Okay, So my soapbox, so my soapboxes. If only as took music as seriously as they take sport, nobody in the world could touch us because it's just so eclectic. We've got such fine musicians in this country, just so cool, and they're allowed to be themselves because we're so far away news I'll say Australian and New Zealand. You know, there's some great musicians. The combination of the two countries is outstanding.
Yeah. I love jazz and I feel for the very talented jazz musicians here that just really don't have a market. They have to leave. Marsha, we're out of time. Gee, that went quickly for me. I hope it did for you. Listening to us. Marsha Heines has been wonderful.
To catch up and I want to thank everybody onto GB because you guys keep me company. Basically twenty four to seven, I find out my news and all that sort of stuff and thanks well.
Whether it's me or Michael or anyone, we'll definitely get my love to Michael.
My love to Michael.
We'll pass it on. I think he might be listening. We'll find out later on Thank you, Marsha god blass. Lots more texts have come in about Marcia Hines. We'll get back to the text line on that in a few minutes time. I've got the news coming up. Then we'll talk to Jim Haynes. Yes, he's back the Historian to do Sydney Side as his regular segment on the Michael McLaren Show. That's coming up after the.
News now onto GB and network stations. He'm back to afternoons with Bill Woods filling.
In from Michael McLaren.
I hope you're having a wonderful afternoon. Thank you very much for joining us this afternoon. Hope you're well too, and we've had a lot of great feedback today. It's a very interesting commentary and particularly on what you may have heard in the news about the official New South Wales statistics from the view of crime statistics and research on the level of youth crime and the interesting theories as to why they're not as bad as we all
thought that'd be. And a couple of those do certainly hold up from police officers who texted in saying, well, these kids aren't getting registered because they're not even getting arrested in a lot of cases. I thought that was very interesting feedback, and I regret not pursuing that though I suspect that Jackie Fitzgerald, the executive director we spoke to, would not even know about those sorts of things not being part of the statistics that are presented to her.
And another theory was that a lot of people are basically giving up on youth crime in that they're not even reporting it in the first place. So there you go a couple of interesting theories borne out by people who claim to be on the ground and know these things. So fair enough, thank you for that. It's been very enlightening. You may be equally skeptical when we talk later in this hour about how much CEOs are being paid. Some research came out about that today, so we'll get onto
that as well in the short term, just quickly. So a lot of great texts about Marsha Hines and our chat with her. Thank you for all the feedback on that, and a couple of specific ones from Leanne. Music really does bring so much emotion. I've been listening to Toto lately. Boy am I appreciating the incredible songs they had. Miss Hines simply, says Cameron, and someone who met Marsha on
a plane quite as flight sat next to her. She said she was delightful, chattered all the way and I felt special and told everyone I met her for years. So a lot of anticipation for her summer tour. Right now, at nine past two, let's get into ale bit of Sydney history.
There were history makers, frauds and fakers, ladies and renowned good ones, bad ones. Quite a few bad ones lived in Sydney Town. There were fascinating characters, convicts, Parrister's servants of them around Conman, strong men, all the wrong men. There's a ton of them, and every.
One of them lived in Sydneytown. Now on Afternoons Sydney with Jim Haynes.
Yes, and feel free to call up too if Jim prompts any wonderful memories. Good to catch up with you, mate.
Yes, nice to see you again. And I did hear your comment about being excited about Marsha coming in and not quite so excited about I perfectly.
Stand forgive me, forgive me particularly Sorry that was just say you and I were reminiscent Sturre in the news. It's about being pulled up and cautioned by a listener for giggling too much on air one day.
Yeah, so we think she might be the listener who complains a lot. But never mind, we were giggling. I know that was very funny, Bill, Yes, we thought it was. Anyway. Look, today I was thinking I'm coming in, I'm listening to Marsha. You know, last week we spoke about this amazing Aura woman who has been Along's third wife Boo wrong. And we've had some incredible, colorful characters. So and I'm afraid today's Sydney Sider is you know, he's maybe not, but by g he's one of those blokes who makes me
feel tired. And you see in the notes that I've done, I've split I've split him up into all of His name was Sir Charles Kinkaid Kinnaird, sorry, so Charles Kinnaird mckella. And he lived from eighteen forty four to nineteen twenty six. Now there's a few surprises I'm going to save up to the end. But he was a physician, a politician, a businessman and a social reformer. And any one of these careers or interests that he had would have taken a normal person a lifetime's energy.
But there are people like this Bill.
You look at what they've done and how they affected And of course this guy did so much for the city of Sydney. He was a true Sydney sider. We'll look at that in a second. But what he did to change this city is just remarkable. And yet he comes across as a fairly sort of I don't know, I dare dan say, you know, a boring life, but it certainly was not. So let's get started. He was born in Sydney in eighteen forty four. He was the
only son of fred Rick McKellar. Now he was the first He was a pioneer physician and he was actually the first, one of the first doctors at the Sydney Hospital way back when it was called the Dispensary, you know. So he was a pioneer himself. And Charles's mum was Isabella and she was a Robertson and because she was a widow, and she was a widow of an amazing person who we could talk about named William Garvey. So there were pioneer families all through this family tree, and
mostly Scottish. The Scots came out here and did very well. The Irish came out here and drank a lot.
So I'm glad to said that because I'm a Scottish mostly.
Well so is my wife.
So I've got to say that whatever we talk about anything Scottish, it has to be they were wonderful. Now let's get back to Charles anyway, eighteen forty four, so he's educated at Sydney Grammar. Sydney and Sydney Grammar was up and running, you know when he was a kid that was it as prestigious, but it would have been not only prestigious, but they're probably one of only two or three schools that you know, where you could go
to high school. His family moved for a while when he was a teenager just left school up to Port mcquarie. So they had property, and they had a lot of property, and later on we'll find out he married into more property. So you know, he wasn't exactly you know, working class land. But off he goes up to Port mcquarie and there he learned about, you know, living on the land and he became a pioneer pastoralist in his own right, owned
a lot of rural property. But he then goes off to Scotland and he gets his degree in medicine at Glasgow Universe Glasgow, and this was a common thing. I know a number of other pioneer Scottish people, including the poet Charles Souter, they did the same. They went back to Scotland to be educated, then came back to Australia.
So he's back in Sydney. He's registered with.
The Medical Board of New South Wales in eighteen seventy five and he becomes honorary surgeon at the Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary.
Which was later the Sydney Hospital.
That's the one that was built for Macquarie. The Rum Hospital merchant said we'll build it for free if you give us the monopoly on Rum and it was called the Rum Hospital for a long time.
But that's a deal.
It was quite a good deal too.
And there's there are two sections of it left of that original Rum Hospital that was built in Governor Macquarie's time for the franchise on Rum by these three merchants. And one bit got knocked down. The main bit in the middle got knocked down. That's Sydney Hospital now. The one on the southern end is now a museum. That was the old Mint and it was the first mint in the world outside of Britain that was entitled to mint British coins. That's the Mint and it's a museum now.
The other one up north that's still there, and I think that might have been and I shouldn't I shouldn't say this, but I think that might have been where the not so mentally stable people were, because it's.
Now Parliament House. Of course, that's.
Where the new Southwest Government is. Anyway, he was the medical officer there and he was his father had been the first salaried medical officer in that hospital, and he then went on to be stationed there and he did a lot of work with doctor Roberts and he always said, you know, later on when we get to his career, if we ever do. He credited doctor Roberts with being his mentor. And he was the bloke in charge of the hospital. And in eighteen seventy seven he married, so
he would have been thirty two or thirty three. He married Marion and she was the daughter of Thomas Buckland. And Thomas Buckland is a guy we should talk about because he was a huge pioneer in pastoral Australia and also in Sydney. He was the man who changed the Botany swamps into massive industry for the wool washing and
all that sort of stuff. And people might not know this, but from where south Dowling Street and around Cleveland Street all there out to Botany Bay was swamp and that's where a lot of.
The factories were.
And this bloke at Thomas Buckland, he became very rich. He owned a lot of that land.
So we've got we've got a lot of.
Connections here, you know, with pastoral families, wealthy people and particularly Scottish people. So let's have a look at his medical career. This would have been enough for most people. He joined the board and set up they set up a board in eighteen eighty one because there was a small pox breakout.
They set up a board.
To combat the small pox epidemic in New South Wales. And it's sometimes called the first serious smallpox epidemic in New South Wales, which of course is not true. The first one was eighteen months after the first fleet arrived and it wiped out seventy percent of the Aora people, the Aboriginal people of the Sydney basin. So you know, I've seen that quote a few times. You know, this
was the first bit, wasn't The first? Sadly serious smallpox epidemic was way back in seventeen eighty nine, but never mind, there was a serious one.
And he was on the board.
And he became the government medical Advisor and Health Officer for Port Jackson, which meant he was chairman of the immigration board. I'm starting to tick these off and we'll make a list. And he was the official visitor to hospitals for the insane at Gladesville and Paramatta. So you know, he's already got all these jobs. I won't go through them again, but there are plenty of them. He was also hang on, there's more. He was also the ex
officio Emigration officer for Port Jackson. He was a member of the Board of Pharmacy, and he was a member of the Medical Board, and he campaigned for a federal quarantine system and was appointed president of the Board of Health. Now he's only a young man. I don't know how he's managed. He's got so many hats.
Was this all served concurrently from one of the other?
No, this is all you know.
In those days, if you've got a competent man who was you know, had half a brain, then you gave him all.
The jobs, all the jobs you could fight.
So he did always say that he got a lot of advice from his mentor, that was doctor Roberts, And he said, this is a quote.
He was a.
Modest man, he said. It is rather that I doggedly and persistently followed his lines and advice. Then I formulated original schemes of my own. But the family motto, he pointed out to us, the mckella family motto is perserverando, which means I guess, hang in there Latin severe, And he certainly did.
That's his medical career. Are you tired yet? We'll go on now to his political career.
Oh right, okay.
In eighteen eighty five he resigned his official appointments medical ones and was nominated to the Legislative Council to promote public health legislation, and he helped draft parliamentary bills to do with See, he'd done all that other medical stuff, and they said, this bloke, he's god, he's you know, he knows.
What's going on.
So he got him on the Legislative Council in Parliament and then they said, well, you know, now you draft the legislation that we need. So he's doing that. He was a member of the Board of Health until one year before his death in nineteen twenty five, so right through almost until his death he was Vice President and executive on the Executive Council. He was Secretary for Mines. Now, somehow mines were lobbed in with health, health.
And all that.
I guess that makes sense. So he's a Minister for mines. He's got all these other jobs and he remained on the Board of Health Council his entire life. He introduced the Dairies Supervision Act of eighteen eighty six. Now you'd know what that was all about, Bill Dairy Supervision Act to have.
To do with milking cows.
Not much. It actually had to do with.
A child mortality. Oh there was this huge problem where the dairies being not being regulated and of course all the kids being given milk, and there was you know, we know there was terrific infant mortality in those days. So he set up this Dairy's Supervision Act and you know, it stopped or it had a big effect on improving infant mortality. He was appointed to the when we became a nation and there was an Australian government. Someone said this blokes terrific, you know, and they grabbed him put
him in the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia. But he was too involved in New South Wales so that didn't last very long. He was back now go again. He was a member of the State Children Relief Board. He was a president of the Neglected Children and Juvenile Offenders and he passed One of his other pieces of legislation was to do with how you treated juvenile offenders. This is interesting, we've just been talking about that, but in those days there was nothing, there was no legislation,
and I guess they were treated as adults. I'm not exactly sure, but This created children's courts and a probationary system. And he wrote this huge report which was published as a book, and it was called the Treatment of Neglected and Delinquent Children in Great Britain, Europe and America and Australia.
No doubt, well it was.
You know, he must have gathered other people's data for that. Surely he would have had time to go to all those places. Well, he did.
Travel quite a lot, but I'm tired already. Anyways, he was admired mostly. He never aligned himself with a political party, and so Joseph Banks did this too, And Joseph Banks said, and I'm sure you know Charles mckella thought the same. The minute I align myself with one party, I've lost half of my friends and my contacts and my influence. So he never did. He always stayed away from party politics. He was knighted in nineteen twelve, and then he was
given a KCMG in nineteen sixteen. That's not a car, by the way, it's another knighthood, a KCMG. I think I know, I won't even try to remember what it means. Anyway, that's his political career.
Would you like to know about his business life very quickly.
I know we're running out of time. Maynard's coming in shortly for a chat.
I know I wouldn't want to get in the way of Clinton.
But he succeeded his father in law as director of the Bank of New South Wales. He was chairman of the Gloucester es State Company, Mutual and Citizens Life Assurance, pitt Son and Badgery, the Union Trustee of Australia, the United Insurance Company of Australia, the Royal Insurance Company, Colonial Sugar Refining, Australian Widows Fund, Equitable Life a Company, and lots of other things. He also did volunteer work. How
does he get the time. He was the volunteer surgeon for the Volunteer Rifles New South walest Rifles, Chairman of the Medical Board of the Royal Society. He was founding Counselor of the New South Wales branch of the Medical British Medical Association. He was the Examiner at Medicine for Sydney University, Vice president and President of the Amateur Orchestral Society.
So he's also putting giving money in philanthropy and charity and working, as I know you do a lot of charity work, and he was doing it for the orchestra. He was a present vice president of the Raw Society and for the Welfare of Mothers and Babies and a member of the Australian and Athenaeum Clubs. So you know, I mean this bloke. You'd pass him in the street and we don't remember him for being flamboyant or anything like that. But what a life. And the last thing,
and I've saved this to last. He had three sons, one of whom died in the Boar War, and one daughter. And his daughter was Dorothea mckellor. She wrote, I love a sunburned country, your land of sweeping planes. I would go on, but I know that class waiting.
So that's where it all led.
Yeah, And they're buried together at Waverley Cemetery right down near the front and you can find there's a you know, a little enclosure and Dorothy is there, so is her father, and the family all buried. You can visit them at Waverley Cemetery.
Wow, what a legacy. Famous but not famous, but still amazingly.
Where did you get the energy?
You know, probably slept about three hours a night. Well, some of those people that.
Yeah, he was the energizer Bunny of Sydney and we owe him an awful lot.
Sounds like it, Jim Hayes. Great to catch up again, mate, Thank.
You my pleasure.
It's that time of the afternoon.
Time to find out what's coming up on Sydney now for.
The Sirato successor, the turbo charged Kia K four kias on new small sedan GT line very interavailable now find out more about Kia's latest small car.
In half an hour of his Sydney now right now. It's Sydney soon enough. See what I did there, Clinton Maynard, very clever, Bill, not that amused though.
I know I've been laughing throughout your program, particularly laughing with the comparisons between Volvos and Tesla's being the modern day version of Volvo, which I.
Have to say I'm a Subaru ambassador as we continue this conversation.
That's just those are important, very good cars that they are. Yes, the comparison I think is actually quite accurate.
Yeah, and you so you reckon that spot on? I think yeah, I think it is.
And I was driving the traffic the other day and pointed out of valve out of my son, my fourteen year old become quite a karna, and he's become really interested in nineteen eighties cars. For some reason, he's collecting hot wheel bottles of nineteen eighties Japanese cars. Mostly they still make hot wheels. Oh, it's massive at the moment. It's actually there are people who now will go to Big w or the retailers. They will scourage through the
bins looking for Ferraris. Honestly, if you try to find yourself a hot wheels Ferrari at the moment, put it up on eBay, you'll make yourself a fur small fortune because you can't find any because someone's going around Sydney going through all the toy departments or retailers to buy up every single Ferrari hot wheels current existence, and they're then reselling them on the internet for a fortune.
Won't find them. What about match Box toys?
Well, interestingly, I didn't realize this until my son and fall me. Matchbox and hop Wheels run by the same company these days.
Oh ok, so there were rivals for years. Yeah, Leslie made Matchbox cars.
Yeah, it's their own by Mantel these days. But then I was explaining different car issues and we drove past a Volvo and I actually pointed out, oh, back in the nineteen eighties, yeah, Volvo drivers were the scourge of Sydneys. I had to explain it, but I thought, you know what, in this day and age, they're getting a bit of a bad rap because one of the most successful motor racing drivers of the era in our country, he's a
key we is Scott McLaughlin. Yes, Scott mcglocklan is now an Indy car driver in the United States, very very successful. He made his name in supercars, as you well know as it form a commentator driving a Volvo.
Yes, and prior to that, prior to that, back in the day, Johnny Bow drove Volvos. I think do you recall.
There was a year in the Australian Touring Car Championship would have been maybe the early nineties, late eighties.
Yes, Volvo's station wagon was actually driving or they caught it the estate. At one stage they had Alan Moffatt drove a Mazda.
Well you had a whole range of ca Alanmoft was a ford Man throughout the seventies, but he then drove and I know this is earned one seven few years.
It was very successful anyway.
Yeah, sorry, were Well, I'm going to talk about a EV's on my profile right, We're going to talk about EV taxes because if you're driving a EV, good luck to you. You're not paying excise.
Ye.
Well, Jim Charmers has now said I think we're gonna have to change this situation. There's been some issues in Victoria over the past few years because there was a challenge to their EV tax that went on the way to the High Court. So it's really difficult for regulators. But let's be honest, it's not fair on the rest of the driving population that we're paying such big excises but those driving an electric vehicle don't.
So we're going to have a look at that.
On the program. Also, i'll be talking to an evacuee who has left Israel and has just touched down in Australia after there's something like three thousand people have now registered to either evacuate from Israel or Iran, and I know there's an issue about whether Australian government should be actually assisting or whether these people knew they were traveling to Israel in the Middle East. In the middle of well,
there's been the Gaza conflict of force. But I'll be talking to an Aussie who's just arrived home on the program this afternoon. My straight shooter for a Thursday afternoon is David Elliott.
Former MP. He's always interesting.
He's going to give you an insight about what's going to happen in Parliament House in the.
Next twenty four hours.
Okay, as we've been following this week, there's some dramas in the Upper House with the threat to literally arrest some of the staffers from Chris Min's office. So I'll speak to day about whether this is actually possible, whether it's legally possible, and if I can find a good reason.
I do have a reason.
If there's some time I may be playing some Bruce Springsteen later in the program.
There's always a good reason for that.
There is a very good reason. You'll have to keep listening to find out why. And I'll be spitting the winter.
Wheel, of course we will. I'm going to do that too in the next twenty five minutes. So thank you for reminding me. Clinton Maynard, He'll be back short. He was Sydney now and apologies for the late Hello.
Aaron Marsin non essential staff at the US embassy in Israel are being evacuated as US President Donald Trump considers getting involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. The state government is developing a framework which, rather than paying levies, would see property developers help to build infrastructure like schools
and roads under a work in kind agreement. A twenty seven year old man has been charged after an allegedly stolen land cruiser was driven through a shopping center in Melbourne. Please say they found an electronic key reprogramming tool during the arrest. And a test of one of Elon Musk's starships has ended in another massive explosion and fireball in Texas. In Sport, Blues halfback Nathan Cleary has admitted he took a groin injury unto last night's origin loss to the Morons.
Cleary suffered the injury during the team's final training session, just twenty four hours before kickoff. And there'll be more news at three.
O'clock on afternoons.
A finance update for Pretzel Wealth and finance for Trusted Financial Planning Just Google Blake went to Pretzel.
Yes.
Scott Phillips from the Motley Fool fool dot com dot au joins US now to talk finance. Hello mate, Bill.
Good afternoon. But I've got I say you inclined took me back. I'm thinking about Pty Longhurst in the BMW or Yes Johnson the Ford Sierra. That was a time, wasn't it.
It was? It was a real sweet spot in touring car racing when a lot of the different makes for different reasons, were competitive because they were they were good in certain parts of the track, not all on the same part of the track, so they're overtaking each other off and it was quite amazing and they haven't quite found that since. But now unemployment data out today a bit of skepticism from people listening in on this one. What are the numbers telling us? Mate?
So the good news is that the mployment rate remains very low at four point one percent. Now it's not as low as it was during kind of the best of times and also the worst of times during COVID, when plenty of government support had everyone who wanted a job almost everyone, but four point one percent as the lowest it's consistently been for the best part of forty years.
So really really good news there. It is the one or the brightest spot anyway, across the economy and other things are maybe softening off just to touch, so pretty happy to see that, quite honestly good news. Also, we didn't lose too many jobs. We lost two and a half thousand jobs. That's out of a workforce of fourteen million,
six hundred and twenty thousand, so that's pretty good. Fourteen number of unemployed people did what it did actually fourcuse people left the labor force, and the participation rate, which is the percentage of us in work or looking for work, decreased from sixty seven point one to sixty seven percent. Overall, monthly hours worked also increased by about twenty five million hours, or one point three percent, so net a pretty good result best you could probably hope for in the circumstances.
We can always want lower unemployment, but it seems pretty stubbornly high at that level at least won't go much lower. I don't think permanently. Good news that hasn't increased, given we've had some soft retail staless number soft GDP as well. But good news is the most stroners who want a job can find one. The underemployment rate also fell only a touch, but from six to five point nine percent, meaning a nice round ten percent of us either can't get work or can't get as many hours as we want.
And we had a text earlier someone saying, of course, if you had ass sets, you don't count as being unemployed. That was an interesting one which I had a vague knowledge job, but not totally sure about.
The unemployment numbers. It's an iffic, got one to change the definition a few times. Our reality is if you work at least one hour in a fortnight, you're not unemployed. So it's tricks to the tail right now. Look, and again it's the direction that matters most. The underemployment number they are reporting I've just mentioned that's good because they're actually including those people then who do fall in that space? And yeah, look it's not perfect there, there's no perfect
way of calculating it. We have to hope the direction of the trend is right. And like all these stats, there are also approximations. They don't ask every individual person. They take a representative sample and try and work it out from there. But the trends go in the right direction, that's a win. If it's not, that's probably the bigger issue of focus on maybe then trying to work out the absolute number for its own sake, local markets and
the dollar. Not a terrible day, the great day. We spent all day in the red, but only down by a tiny fraction three one hundreds of one percent, so we'll call that flat. Eighty seven hundred and fifty five points. That's the all ordinaries the audidollar down to touch on about tenth of a percent lower, sixty four point eight seven usns.
Scottie Phillips, Thank you so much.
What's that? Thanks Phil?
It's twenty two to three. I think we might give something away here before we go to the break, and we'll give you a chance to have a think about it. Here we go.
Two gvs.
Winter Wheel.
Yes, that is your queue to call. Be the first caller now on one three hundred seven double two eight seven three one three hundred seven double two eight seven three for a chance to spin two gvs. Winter Will. Yesterday I gave away two and a half grand to Scott from Como and he is pretty happy about it. I was probably just as happy. But overall this is up to forty thousand dollars worth the cash and prizes to be one we've got two and a half grand
up for grabs again today. Also got some Origin tickets, some the National Tiles give away contributing to Tiles, DD's groups giving away money and we've got lots of cash to so we'll take a quick break when we come back. We'll take your calls. One three hundred seven double two eight seven three. First caller in gets the chance to go for a spin with me. Alright, it's seven eight to three, win a wheel time. And our caller who
came through first on that line is Adam from Concord. Gooday, Adam, mate, well mate, thank you. I'll do my best. I can't promise anything. I just want to remind you I did get two and a half grand for our guest yesterday, so fingers crossed, but I can go it again. I'm going to give it a real rip to mate. I'm going to rip this thing really hard and it could go for a long time. But let's just see. We might even fall off the bench, but not go too hard.
So stand by, Adam, here we go. Here's the winter Wheel. He's your chance. Let's spin it. It's going, it's going, it's going, it's going. I did a good job. It's still going, it's still going. It's slowing, it's slowing, it's stopping on. Oh, seven hundred and fifty dollars, not bad, mate, it's not bad.
Yeah. Happy, that's a lot more than I had five minutes ago.
Bill, good Man, that's the way to look at it. I've got to tell you were one short of the origin tickets, so I don't know what's more value to you. But you know, with seven fifty dollars, I'm sure you can still biog that.
It'll be going to the Minister of Finance here at home.
Should be looking after that.
I know, if you like me, you probably won't even see it. It'll be so fast getting into her past. Yes, that's good on your mate. Stay on the light, Adam, well done, well done. He's wonder seven hundred and fifty dollars. Congratulations, Adam. That's how win to wheel for today. You'll get another chance in Sydney now with Clinton Maynard. Glenn's been waiting patiently on the line to talk about who drove Volvos in touring car racing back in the day. Hello, mate, Yeah, you get a Bill.
I made the Volvo station work and that was driven by Peter Brock.
Peter Brock did drive Volvos. A lot of people would not have remembered that. Yes, I was. I knew Brocky very well, and yeah he's after all. And I'll tell you what. We've had a lot of texts on this Crichton. We've had Robbie Francovic I know he drove a Turbo Volvo and Jimmy Richards also drove a Volvo in the Australian Touring Car Championship. Jimmy's a wonderful bloke. They didn't call him gentleman Jim for nothing. I had great days associating with Jim Richards and of course those guys in
touring cars. Thanks for calling in Gland. It was a great memory.
The championship in eighty six, Yes.
They did, yes, And I mentioned it was it Robbie who who won the championship that year? Was it Robbie Robbie? Yeah? And John Bower is his teammate I think in those days and actually played a role in that. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. Good on your Glenn. Thanks for calling in mate, really appreciate it. Great memories of Australian touring car racing. Well really it's Australian culture. We're going to come back and talk about the culture of
paying CEOs. There's been a few yarns around today in the media about what CEOs are being paid. This is data commissioned by the Australian Councilor of Superannuation Investors and it's about the take home pay of the country's top one hundred CEOs. Now, according to this, they've actually flatlined over the last But it depends on what stories you read, because some of them have been quite astronomical.
Ed.
John's the manager of Stewardship for the Australian Councilor's Superannuation Investors and he's on the line.
Good I Ed, Yeah, Bill, nice to chat to you.
Yeah, thank you. Well. Talk us through what your research found with that. Varying reports on this, highlighting different aspects of it, but overall, how our CEO is being paid more than they have ever been before, or a little less, or has it stayed much the same.
It's actually stayed the same over ten years, which is rare when we think about CEO pay and when we look at particularly countries like the US or the UK where things have really bolted over the past ten years. Effectively the numbers that have been flat in our top one hundred companies. But bear in mind the average pay for an AX one hundred CEO was still fifty five times average worker, so it's still a great position to
be in. But the numbers haven't actually jumped or we haven't seen that breakout recent years, which is quite significant.
The median pay four point one five million, slightly up from three point ninety six and twenty fourteen, so not a massive amount. But then other wages haven't gone up much either.
Have they No, not at all, And I think it's one of those things where things can hold flat, but investors and boards need to stay diligent otherwise you could see a breakout in their stuff. And that's why we again do the research. And while we always encourage large investors and super funds, but certainly mum and dad investors to watch closely on these issues.
Well, it does become something that the shareholders are concerned about. Before we get onto that fifty five times the paypacket of the average worker. That's probably the key statistic, isn't it really, Because the actual amount is relative to cost of living, et cetera. Et cetera. But how is that disparity going well?
Again, fifty five times still large. Ten years ago it was actually seventy one times in Australia, so that's actually come down on a relative basis. But again when we look at places like the US, there's recent research over there that says it's like three hundred and fifty times the media and employee. So we've got to really watch this carefully.
Of course, you know, in an aspirational society, you know, we all want to get to those levels and be able to earn that kind of money. But getting back to the point about shareholders, they do get a bit upset, don't they, Particularly when a company isn't performing well and the CEO is well remunerated, and then you've got the golden parachute, which we'll talk about in a minute. So these things they are scrutinized, aren't they at that level?
Oh you spot on Bill, And really I think for many people it's a case of value for money. We can think of those CEOs of those companies that have really delivered over time, but in some cases you see big bonuses where again the performance isn't there and things have actually gone backwards, and that's where investors get very, very concerned.
Is this sometimes a case of just trying to get rid of somebody and pay them whatever it takes.
Well, yeah, when it comes to some of these golden parachutes that say yes, And there's often very little detail when people step aside, a lot of discussion of spending more time with family or spending more time in the garden. But I think the big, big concern is, and we saw this after the financial crisis, when so many companies and people are impacted, that there's something like eighty million dollars paid out in these golden parachutes, which was a
huge hit. Whereas today those numbers have come a long way down. And part of that is investors are able to vote no on large termination payments and golden parachutes, and that's happening more often, which is again a good shift.
Fair enough to before I let you go, Sorry, we're running out of time today. It's been one of those kinds of shows. What are the interesting trends did you observe in this data?
Well, I think the big thing and you touched on that the golden parachutes teramination pay at lowest level in fifteen years. That's significant. The holding flat across the top one hundred is significant. And again we think it's that activity of investors, so super funds, Mum and Dad investors, fund managers actually shining a light on these and also
voting no when that comes up. And we've also seen, you know, really some of the bigger names or the bigger numbers do come from offshore companies and particularly US companies, and that's something we're going to have to continue to watch and certainly watch over the coming reporting season.
Yeah, let's shareholders for what it's worth and how many we have. Keep the buggers honest as we must do. Ed John, thank you very much for your time. Mate.
Cheers Phil, thank you.
John's the manager of Stewardship for the Australian Councilor of Superannuation Investors. Now we need to get on the track of the day because I don't want to stop giving stuff away. I kind of enjoy it. Congratulations to Jeff from Georgia's Hall. It was our track of the day. When a well done Jeff, because he got the answer
right on this day. In nineteen seventy eight, Field the Cat made his US comic strip debut published in forty one newspapers, and it was created, of course by Jim Davis, who he actually named the cat after his grandfather, who was James A. Garfield Davis. By the way, if you want a bit of trivia there and they went on
to make movies about and everything. You've won the one hundred and fifty dollars out at the B Store, Jeff Shoes, you love comfort, You'll live in Birkenstock, Blundstone fit Flop, MBT, Frankie four and a lot more Macquarie Center or Westfield Miranda if you want to get into the B store. Time now to get into Sydney.
Now.
It's been wonderful chatting with you for the last couple of days. Michael McLaren will be back tomorrow. Stand by for Clinton. Maynard by for now.